“We’ll get through this,” the older woman says to the younger, in a tone oozing sympathy and understanding, clearly intended to buck up faltering spirits. Ripped from its context, the line and its earnest reading might suggest that the troubles being faced are of a life-threatening or life-altering kind: a cancer diagnosis, the death of a close relative, a psychological breakdown.

Um, no. The older woman, Judy (Caroline Aaron), is merely referring to the arduous, nerve-rattling process of obtaining a place in one of Manhattan’s exclusive and expensive private schools for the 4-year-old son of Alex (Carla Gugino), the anxious mother at the center of “A Kid Like Jake,” a new play by Daniel Pearle that opened on Monday night at the Claire Tow Theater at Lincoln Center.

Mr. Pearle’s smart, fluent drama is not, I am relieved to report, merely a study of the harrowing process by which well-heeled New Yorkers scheme and scramble and implore the gods — and the gatekeepers — to win their children admission to rarefied sanctums with names like Dalton and Calhoun. (The subject might lend itself to a nifty comedy, although the details revealed here suggest that even the lunacies of absurdism couldn’t touch the actual truth.)

Even as they are caught up in the elaborate process of vetting, or rather being vetted, Alex and her husband, Greg (Peter Grosz), are trying to calibrate their responses to the behavior of their son. Jake’s intelligence and active imagination have helped him win heady scores on the tests that are one of the many criteria by which the tiny tots of the rich are evaluated. But he’s also expressed a preference for what Judy, the proprietor of his preschool who is advising Alex and Greg on their search, delicately describes as “gender-variant play.”

When Halloween rolls around, Jake curls his little lip at the idea of wearing a pirate or a skeleton outfit. In one of the play’s funniest lines, Greg describes Jake (who remains unseen) dismissing these standard-issue get-ups as “lazy”: he wants to go trick-or-treating in the puffy sleeves and long gown of Snow White. His imaginative life revolves around Disney princesses, and his fondness for Cinderella has become a virtual obsession.

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Peter Grosz and Carla Gugino portray parents in “A Kid Like Jake,” an LCT3 production.Credit
Richard Termine for The New York Times

In Alex and Greg’s evolving responses to their son’s unusual inclinations — and what they may or may not imply about his future sexual identity — Mr. Pearle has found an intriguing subject of real currency, and one that stirs our natural sympathy. And with the ever-excellent Ms. Gugino and Mr. Grosz giving layered, honest performances in the central roles, “A Kid Like Jake” mostly keeps us engrossed.

Subverting expectations, Mr. Pearle reveals Alex as the parent with unspoken discomfort at Jake’s tendency to favor toys and games normally considered the exclusive province of little girls. Judy, played with a fine combination of grit and sensitivity by Ms. Aaron, gently suggests that, given the highly competitive market, Alex and Greg might actually want to emphasize what makes Jake “special.”

“This kind of strategizing, it’s sickening,” Judy says, “but I think you might be able to capitalize on it. Because they’re looking for kids — and families — that stand out.”

But while Alex is happy to indulge her son’s affinities at home, she feels a prickly unease at the idea of exposing them to public scrutiny. Lurking underneath the love and desire to protect him is perhaps more than a little secret wishing that Cinderella will one day be replaced by a more traditional role model.

“You’re making the assumption that he’ll never grow out of this,” Alex angrily says in a later meeting with Judy. “I’m sorry, but there is such a thing as a phase.”

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A Kid Like Jake Carla Gugino as a conflicted mother in this drama at the Claire Tow Theater.Credit
Richard Termine for The New York Times

Greg, a therapist, feels more exasperated at Alex’s fretting than he is at what he sees as a plain fact about their son that can’t be denied. “He’s not exactly Johnny Basketball,” Greg says, trying to lighten increasingly fraught discussions. Under the pressure of his mother’s anxiety (amplified by her new pregnancy), Jake begins “acting out” in encounters with other children.

Later, when the tensions between Greg and Alex have reached an agonizing pitch, and the strains of Alex’s difficult pregnancy and the problems with Jake have exposed old rifts in their relationship, Alex will turn Greg’s lighthearted comment into a weapon: “I mean, it’s not like you’ve ever taken him to the park or thrown a ball in his direction,” she says savagely, after making an even meaner reference to a father-son manicure date.

Under the smooth direction of Evan Cabnet, Ms. Gugino, a superlative stage actress, brings a simmering intensity to her performance, managing to render human even Alex’s sometimes implausible excesses of vitriol. Mr. Grosz, perhaps best known for his comedic appearances on “The Colbert Report,” does a nice job with the perhaps slightly idealized, über-mensch role of the nurturing Greg.

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But the endless wrangling over Jake’s test scores and his play visits to the various schools often seem to draw focus from what should be the play’s primary subject: how his parents can, or should, raise a kid like Jake.

Will indulging his fantasies cause more harm in the long run? Are parents like Alex and Greg, educated and intelligent and forward-thinking when it comes to matters of sexuality, really entirely at ease with the possibility that their son may be homosexual, or possibly even transgender? These subjects arise, but are often subsumed again by discussions of Jake’s behavioral issues, or disappointing news on the school front, or unrelated issues in their marriage.

It is hard, after a while, not to feel some exasperation at the Sturm und Drang surrounding Jake’s imminent future. Aside from those with the deep pockets to engage in the blood sport of private-school wrangling, who really cares about the process? Alex’s agonized fear that Jake may end up having to attend public school — oh, the horror! — will not exactly endear her (or the play) to anyone facing more earthbound problems. Which is to say, a vast majority of Americans — even a vast majority of New Yorkers.

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